TradeKing Offers $150 Reimbursement Of Account Transfer Fees For New Customers

One amusing tidbit is that even when the market is tanking, brokerage firms do just fine.  Stock brokers collect a commission when you buy or sell, after all:  they get paid whether you make money or not.  Of course, some brokers are much less expensive than others.  A discount brokerage is simply one that isn’t full-service:  they execute trades and perhaps offer some reasonable amount of service related to cost-basis accounting, etc, but they don’t recommend stocks, manage your portfolio, or do any of the other things full-service brokerages traditionally do.

In tough economic times, people look for ways to cut back.  One way of doing so is by switching to a cheaper brokerage.  Unfortunately, many brokerages enact sneaky “account cancellation” or “account transfer” fees in the hopes of deterring current customers from switching to a competitor.  These fees can range from just a few dollars to $50, $100, or more.  TradeKing, my favorite discount brokerage (read my full Tradeking review), has recently announced a promotion where they will reimburse you for those account transfer fees up to $150 in order to get your business.

As always, fierce competition in the discount brokerage industry benefits the consumer.  TradeKing offers very low commissions of just $4.95 per trade and $0.65 per options contract with no minimums while still offering excellent customer support if something goes wrong (I personally have never had an issue).  If you’ve been thinking of switching, there’s never been a better time than now.